Bloodthirsty

by William W. Johnstone

  After they’d followed the serpentine course for several hundred yards, they found themselves at a spot where the ground just ahead rose up in a particularly high, sharp ridge topped by more jagged rocks. The rifle fire seemed to be coming from somewhere not very far over that crest.

  Buckhorn dismounted, pulling his Winchester from its saddle scabbard. He ordered Sarge to stay put and began making his way up toward the peak of the ridge. He could hear voices hollering on the other side but couldn’t make out the words.

  Gaining the peak, he removed his hat and then eased his head slowly up into a notch between two rocks. From that vantage point, he surveyed the situation fully revealed to him.

  The slope on the down side of the ridge was somewhat more gradual and strewn with almost nothing but rocky rubble, much of it in the form of large, odd-shaped boulders. At the bottom of the slope, a continuation of the dry wash wandered off into flatter, grassier ground. Two riflemen were concealed behind a pair of the bigger boulders.

  The nearest was about twenty yards down from where Buckhorn crouched. Based on his lean, wiry build, Buckhorn judged the shooter to be a fairly young man.

  Twenty yards farther down and jogged about half that distance to Buckhorn’s right was a second rifleman. By his thickened upper body and a slice of bushy sideburn visible on the bulge of a heavy jowl, Buckhorn made him for considerably older, possibly the younger shooter’s father.

  Down on the floor of the wash, two horses lay shot dead. Beside one of them, a man sprawled motionless, arms and legs akimbo, obviously just as dead.

  Beside the other horse, a second man was also on the ground, but he was far from motionless. He was jammed in tight against the carcass of his former mount, using it as cover as he returned pistol fire at the riflemen up in the rocks.

  The pistol shooter was Leo Sweetwater.

  It was plain enough what had happened. The men in the wash, Sweetwater and his companion, had been ambushed by the pair behind the boulders. Their horses were cut out from under them and the second rider was killed right away. Sweetwater had survived the opening volley and managed to scramble for cover tight to his fallen horse.

  From there, the sandy bottom of the wash was too wide and too empty to provide him any chance of gaining a better position. He was making a fight of it so far, but he couldn’t last. It was just a matter of time before he ran out of bullets or until one of the ambushers repositioned himself to where he could shoot down at an angle from which the horse carcass offered insufficient protection.

  Leastways, that was how things had stood before Buckhorn showed up.

  The quickest and probably surest way for him to turn the tide, Buckhorn told himself, would be to give the ambushers and horse killers a taste of their own medicine. He could put a bullet in the back of each man’s head without them ever knowing what hit them.

  If not for the evident youthfulness of the nearest rifleman—the son or nephew or younger brother under the influence of the older man—that’s very likely how he would have done it.

  Somehow, taking action that harsh against a young man, no matter what he was participating in, did not seem like a reasonable fit with the thin sliver of a chance for redemption that Buckhorn continued to strive for. He cursed under his breath. Instead of opening fire from the rocky notch, he slipped up and over it and began making his way carefully down behind the young rifleman.

  From where he was pinned behind his fallen horse, Sweetwater quickly spotted what Buckhorn was up to. His face lifted momentarily, awareness and recognition spreading across it before he jerked it back down as more bullets instantly sizzled close but succeeded only in slamming horsehide and saddle leather.

  In the midst of his predicament, Sweetwater saw how he might help his rescuer by diverting attention away from any noise Buckhorn might make picking his way down the rubble-strewn slope. He began hollering at his ambushers. “Laudermilk, you stupid son of a bitch! You’ve already lost your land, the bill of sale you signed is already in the hands of Wainwright’s lawyer. All you’ve accomplished here this morning is to guarantee you’re gonna end up buried in land that don’t even belong to you anymore!”

  “Not before I plant you in the ground first,” called back the thick-bodied man. “I wish it was that coldhearted bastard Wainwright down there in my sights, but you’ll do second best, you bootlicking, horse-threatening little puke! I’ll kill you, then me and mine will be miles before they even find your moldering remains.”

  “It won’t matter. Wainwright will figure it out. When he does, he’ll send men after you. Comes to that, you’d best go down fighting. If anybody takes you back to the old general alive, he’ll introduce you to hell on earth while you’re still breathing. He used to run a Yankee prison camp in the war, and the stories I’ve heard about some of the things he done to men in there will make your skin crawl.”

  “Shut up! I don’t care what he’s done in the past. What he’s done since he came to these parts is enough to make my skin crawl. Too bad for you, you’re all I’m able to get my hands on to make him pay.”

  Buckhorn had worked his way down to only a few feet behind the younger man. As he coiled to lunge the final distance, Sweetwater provided some more cover for any sound his attack might make.

  “I ain’t dead yet, you ambushing son of a bitch!” the brash gunman hollered as he raised up long enough to send three rapid-fire rounds pounding into Laudermilk’s boulder.

  In that same instant, Buckhorn hissed “Kid!” behind his about-to-be victim. When the young man wheeled part way around, Buckhorn chopped the flat of his Winchester butt hard across the side of his head and the youth was knocked cold.

  As his body went limp and the rifle started to slip from slack fingers, Buckhorn grabbed the falling rifle before it clattered noisily in the rocks. He sank instantly into a low crouch behind the same boulder that had been shielding the young ambusher from Sweetwater, using it as cover from Laudermilk in case the thick-bodied man had somehow been alerted to what had just taken place.

  The rancher was still totally focused on Sweetwater. “If you had all the bullets in the world, maybe you could keep shooting long enough to whittle away this boulder and get a clear shot at me,” he crowed. “But that ain’t hardly the case, is it, Mr. Hot Shot gunslinger?” In an attempt to drive home his perceived triumph all the more, Laudermilk raised his rifle and leaned out to fire another round or two at his pinned-down target.

  He never got a shot off. From his new vantage point and with his Winchester braced across the top of the boulder, Buckhorn sent a .45 caliber slug sizzling just above the crook of Laudermilk’s arm and smashing into the side of his rifle an inch ahead of the trigger guard. The impact tore the weapon from Laudermilk’s grasp as he simultaneously issued a yelp of surprise and pain from the fierce stinging that shot through his hands and forearms.

  As he rose to full view, Buckhorn triggered another round just for the hell of it, the bullet passing close enough to singe Laudermilk’s left ear as the man twisted around to glare at where he’d expected only his fellow ambusher to be.

  “Try anything funny,” Buckhorn warned, “the next one goes straight into that stupid, slack-jawed expression you’re wearing.”

  “Do it, Buckhorn!” Sweetwater urged from the bottom of the wash. “Shoot that bushwhacking son of a bitch or I will!”

  “Just hold on,” Buckhorn said as he began to advance on Laudermilk. “I got this under control.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Laudermilk said, rubbing his stinging hands together. “What did you do to my boy Johnny?”

  “Shut up!” Buckhorn ordered. “I’ll ask the questions, and if I don’t like your answers they may be the last thing to ever come out of your mouth.”

  “But my boy—”

  “You brought him here to help in a low-down ambush,” Buckhorn said through clenched teeth. “Kinda late to be worrying about him now, isn’t it?”

  Laudermilk’s eyes widened.

  Wid
ened with heightened anger, Buckhorn thought at first. Almost too late, he realized those angry eyes were looking past him.

  In the next instant, two things happened simultaneously. From below, Sweetwater bellowed “Look out!” Buckhorn heard the rattle of loosened rocks from behind. He wheeled around, eyes leaping to the spot where he’d left the coldcocked young Laudermilk.

  Shockingly, the lad had already regained consciousness. He was on his feet, teetering slightly. Having picked up the rifle that had fallen from his grasp only minutes earlier, he started to raise it again.

  Buckhorn wanted to shout out, to implore the kid to drop the rifle once more, beg him not to try anything stupid with it, but he could see in the dulled yet smoldering eyes that it was no use. No words on earth were going to stop the obedient son from doing his damnedest to try and kill him.

  With only one way to prevent it, Buckhorn triggered the Winchester from his hip, levered in a fresh round with practiced speed, and fired again. The two shots tumbled nearly on top of each other and slammed less than an inch apart to the left of Johnny Laudermilk’s sternum. He toppled back, flinging his arms wide and only then, inadvertently, in death, did he release the rifle as he went down.

  “Noooo!” Laudermilk’s anguished wail cut through the air like a knife.

  Buckhorn could feel the father’s pain in that mournful sound, but he couldn’t afford to linger on even a twinge of compassion. A vision had streaked to his mind’s eye—the sight of the handgun he had seen thrust in an old, cracked leather holster hanging from a belt around Laudermilk’s middle.

  Buckhorn dropped into a crouch and once again started to wheel about. He was barely into the turn before the sound of gun blasts pounded his ears. He completed his spin in time to see Laudermilk staggering backwards, two gouts of blood arcing from the middle of his chest. His right hand was gripping the handle of his pistol but he’d lifted it only a fraction of an inch out of its holster. As Buckhorn watched, the man spasmed and abruptly jerked forward. Bending at the waist, he pitched facedown across the end of the boulder and rolled several feet down the slope.

  In the wash, Sweetwater was sitting upright behind his dead horse, both arms extended toward where Laudermilk had been, the fist at the end of each holding a smoking pistol. Sweetwater emitted a shrill whistle from between his teeth and then his lips spread in a wide smile. “Whoooee! Was that close or what?”

  “Too damn close,” Buckhorn said, straightening up and letting the Winchester hang loosely at his side.

  “I didn’t have a good angle on the kid when he clambered up and started getting ready to shoot you,” Sweetwater explained. “You were right in my line of fire . . . but not so with the old man. Him, he was a clear target. When he locked all of his focus on you and forgot about me, that’s what I made him—a target. I ventilated him just the way he’d been trying to do to me and was getting ready to do to you.”

  “Yeah, well, we ventilated hell out of both of ’em, didn’t we?” Buckhorn said sourly.

  Sweetwater squinted up at him. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Reckon they didn’t give us much choice.”

  “Damn right they didn’t. But I can’t help wondering—not that I ain’t grateful for you leaving me a piece of the action, mind you—but why didn’t you blast those two when you first came up behind ’em? That would’ve settled their hash right then and there.”

  Buckhorn’s eyes turned flinty. “Let’s say shooting in the back isn’t something I hold in particularly high favor.”

  “Whatever floats your stick, I guess,” Sweetwater said. “All’s well that ends well, like they say. It ain’t gonna be completely well for me until I get this damn horse off my leg. You in the mood to come the rest of the way down and give me a hand with that?”

  CHAPTER 31

  Until Sweetwater made mention of it, Buckhorn hadn’t realized the man’s leg was pinned under the fallen horse. He thought the young gunman was just hunkered there because he had no chance to gain better cover. Once Buckhorn had been made aware of the predicament, he got down on his knees beside Sweetwater and the two of them scooped away handfuls of the wash’s sandy bottom from around the trapped leg until they created a kind of trough out of which they were able to pull the limb free.

  Luckily, thanks again to the cushiony sand, the leg wasn’t broken. It came out bruised and battered and quick to swell, causing Sweetwater to do some limping, but it could have been a lot worse.

  On the ride to Flying W ranch headquarters, doubled up aboard Sarge, Sweetwater gave a more thorough explanation of how the ambush had come about. He told how he’d recently leaned on Laudermilk in order to get him to agree to sell his property to Wainwright.

  Sweetwater and the other Flying W rider had been on their way over to the former Laudermilk spread that morning to make sure the ex-owners were packing up and getting ready to pull out. A humiliated, angry, embittered Laudermilk had apparently anticipated that and along with his oldest son had waited in ambush to exact some revenge before leaving.

  “Reckon you know how it went from there,” Sweetwater summed up. “Soon as we get to the Flying W, I’ll send some fellas with a wagon to fetch the body of our man Parsons and to deliver those of Laudermilk and his son to the family. Let them see to their own damn planting.”

  At the ranch, Sweetwater’s tale was met with anger, regret over the loss of Parsons, and concern for Sweetwater’s injury, even though he insisted it wasn’t all that bad.

  Wainwright came down from the main house to hear the report and to quell the talk of administering a heated reprisal to the rest of the Laudermilk family. “No,” he said firmly. “I think what’s left of the family—a widow and three young children—have paid quite enough for the foolishness of their patriarch. Let them bury their dead and move on. I expect the times ahead will be punishing enough for them. They don’t deserve for us to heap on any more.”

  He gave approval to Sweetwater’s notion of sending some men back to the ambush site with a wagon to bring home the body of Parsons and to deliver the corpses of Laudermilk and his son to the widow.

  Motioning Buckhorn aside, he said, “It’s uncommon for a newly hired man to be so immediately put to the test of a violent confrontation. I must say, from the sound of it you handled yourself in a very satisfactory manner. Leo, I assure you, is not prone to being overly generous when it comes to handing out praise.”

  Buckhorn shrugged. “Just doing what was proper. Couldn’t hardly leave a fella who rides for my same brand in a tight spot.”

  “Well said. I just want you to know that it has been duly noted by myself, and how pleased and relieved I am to know I clearly made a good choice in soliciting your services.”

  We’ll see how long that lasts, Buckhorn thought.

  “I don’t mean to pile too much on you all at once,” Wainwright continued, “but I want you to accompany the men who are going back with a wagon. You can show them the most direct way to the ambush site. Further, since I read you as having a cool head and fair demeanor, I’m entrusting you to see to it that Laudermilk’s widow and children suffer no coarse treatment from the others who’ll be going with you. Can you handle that?”

  “If that’s the way you want it,” Buckhorn told him.

  Wainwright gave a crisp nod. “That’s the way I want it.”

  * * *

  The two men Buckhorn joined to go fetch the bodies were named Blevins and Poudry. They came out of Wainwright’s fighting crew, not from among the working wranglers.

  Big Bart Blevins was a brute of a man with spiky black whiskers, a mangled nose that looked like a scoop of oatmeal with purplish veins running through it, and suspicious dark eyes that seemed to be perpetually darting this way or that. His favored weapon was a double-barreled shotgun worn hanging from a sling down across the middle of his back. He also carried a short-barreled Smith & Wesson .38 in a shoulder rig on the left side.

  Pepperjack Poudry was of medium height and build, spo
rting a shaggy headful of sandy hair that he adorned with glittery trinkets. He bragged a mixture of French and Mexican blood and possessed the worst traits of each. He had a particular fondness for bladed weapons and carried a wide variety of knives and daggers on his person at all times. He also carried a converted Navy Colt pistol, prominently displayed in a bright red sash worn around his waist.

  They rolled out with Blevins and Poudry sharing the seat of a high-wheeled buckboard pulled by a team of chestnut mares. Buckhorn rode a few yards ahead on Sarge. Blevins worked the reins of the buckboard and clucked gruffly to the mares, obviously having done some teamstering in the past.

  As Buckhorn led in the direction of the dry wash, the men on the wagon seat conversed steadily. They spoke in mutterings and mumblings, their words unintelligible to Buckhorn. Whether this was inadvertent or by design, Buckhorn did not know nor did he particularly care. He had plenty on his mind without worrying about the rambling of a couple low-rung hardcases.

  He knew a little bit about Blevins, had heard Poudry’s name mentioned a time or two, he couldn’t remember where. It didn’t matter. They were marked well enough. He knew their type as clear as if they had descriptions painted on their backs. They were mean and tough, that was about all you could say about them. Wainwright had been reaching pretty deep into the barrel when he scraped them up.

  “This is the place,” Buckhorn announced as they approached the bloating lumps of the horse carcasses on the floor of the wash. A couple buzzards were making lazy circles in the sky overhead and the buzzing drone from clouds of flies could be heard as they drew closer.

  “Wonder what I did to piss off the old man so’s he picked me for this meat detail,” muttered Blevins. “I never liked Parsons all that much to begin with. I sure ain’t got no give-a-damn about a couple ambushin’ skunks. You think I’m gonna lug their no-account asses all the way down off that hill just to make a delivery of ’em? Not very likely, says I.”